Manufacture of color-printed fabrics



Jan. 2l, 1930. J. MoRToN 1,744,410"

MANUFACTURE OF C-OLOR PRINTED FABRICS Filed Jan. 3, 1928 Patented Jan. 21, 1930 UNITED STATES PATENT @FFCE MANUFACTURE OF COLOR-ERNTED FABRICS Application led January 3, 1928, Serial No. 244,376, and in Great Britain November 22, 1927.

calico cylinder-printing machines, to effect the color printing operation by means of copper or other rollers, each roller having a part of the pattern to be produced thereon and the rollers, collectively, impressing the desired colored pattern on the cloth. A serious draW- back attendant upon this method of printing patterned fabrics is that a large number of expensive rollers must always be kept in stock for the various patterns and each time a pattern is to be changed the rollers of the printing machine must be changed and prop erly registered. In block printing also numerous blocks suitable for each pattern have to be kept in stock and the blocks changed for each change of pattern.

The object of this invention is to overcome these drawbacks and, at the same time, to produce, quickly and cheaply, novel printed fabrics in such manner that they have the api 3o pearance of and are capable of being used in lieu of the more expensive fabrics in Which the colored designs or patterns are produced by a Weaving or like operation.

' ln accordance With this invention the manufacture of color printed patterned fabrics is characterized by the patterning of the fabric being effected and. determined by jacquard or like selecting mechanism and the coloring effected by means of palette rollers or blocks 40 which are not used for forming or impressing a particular pattern or design on the fabric but for applying a composite arrangement or palette of colors to and distributing them over the surface of the fabric which latter is so made and (or treated that the parts forming the ground and (or) other selected parts if so desired) are negative in their response to colors applied thereto, that is to say, they will not take on or will Wholly or partially absorb, neutralize, obscure or change the colors as desired for the production of the final coloring effect, Whereas the pattern is positive to said applied colors and Will respond to and show them distinctly.

In carrying out the invention the fabric to se printed has figures or designs produced therein by jacquard or like selecting mechanism in the usual Way and the designs or figures so produced form the pattern and prescribe the delineation thereof in the nished article, and, in order to do this, the threads or yarns used are so dyed, or so treated either chemically or mechanically, or both, in kuevvn manner, and (or) their introduction into the fabric is so arranged, that, during the subsequent color printing process, the parts constituting the ground (and (or) other selected parts if so desired) Will not take on the colors or Will Wholly or partially absorb, neutralize, obscure or change them so that While the parts of the fabric constituting the pattern Will respond to and shovv, in colors, clearly and distinctly the other parts Will form a background. The fabric manufactured, as aforesaid, has the colors applied thereto over its Whole, or substantially its Whole, surface, by means of what I term palette rollers or blocks Which are supplied With a variety of colors, so as to print What I may term a composite arrangement of colors or color patches, over the surface of the fabric, and these colors may be applied to the fabric in any desired order or sequence.

The palette rollers (in the case of a cylinder printing machine) and the palette blocks (in the case of block printing) serve merely as vehicles for conveying the colors to and distributing them over the fabric and theyv are not cut, engraved or etched with the pattern as desired on the final fabric but with some simple or promiscuous'or heterogeneous design suitable simply for taking up and then applying and distributing the colors, in any desired order or sequence, to the fabric. 0f course the arrangement could be such that the colors, or some of them, could be overprinted Wherever desired in order to produce shades or blending in the coloring. The fabric by its selection and or) rejection or partial rejection of the colors of the palette ico rollers upsets any color scheme or com lete pattern there may be thereon and pro uces a different color pattern on the finished article.

Small designs by way of embellishments may be made on the palette rollers or blocks.

When the fabric is printed it looks like a many colored jacquard fabric and has the pattern delineation, not of the color printed thereover, but of the jacquard design Vor pattern.

As the palette rollers or blocks apply the composite arrangement of colors thereon over the whole, or substantially the whole, surface of the fabric it is necessary in order to show up the jacquard design or pattern of the fab- I'lc, more or less clearly and distinctly as may be desired to produce the required artistic effect, that the yarns or threads of the ground should be negative to applied colors and therefore should be dyed with such colors, or should be so treated, as to resist or partially resist, or be immune to or partially immune to the applied colors, so that they will not take on, or will not produce the full color value or efl'ect of, the palette colors; for instance, the fabric to which the colors are applied may be so woven, with colored threads or yarns, as 'to have a ground in a dark color, such as black, dark brown or blue, and the design or pattern in white, the white design, being positive to applied colors and when being color printed, taking on and showing up, at their full color value, the colors of the palette rollers or blocks and the ground absorbing or neutralizing or partial absorbing or neutralizing the colors, so t at, in the round, the colors of the palette have not t eir full color value or efeet and do not show up, or only partially Show up, while the pattern shows up distinctiy.

This invention enables the manufacturer to utilize the arts of the dyer and chemist end of the jacquard designer as well as the machinery of the calico printer in such man- Der as to produce novel multi-colored artistic or ornamental fabrics cheaply and quickly, the fabrics produced having the appearance and being capable of being used in lieu of the expensive multi-colored patterned fabrics produced by woven processes only.

Preferably, I use a cylinder-printing machine and the palette rollers are mounted thereon in the usual way. If and when desired 'the color boxes may be changed without chang' 0 the palette rollers and, in this way, 'new co ored designs may be produced.

n order that the invention may be full understood, one embodiment thereof in whic color printing rollers are used will now be described simply by wa y of example and with reference to the accompanying drawing, in which:-

Fig. 1 is a diagrammatic view showing part of a cylinder printing machine with a set of palette rollers and their color boxes.

Fig. 2 is a diagram showing the palette of colors as distributed over the surface of the jacquard fabric by the action of the palette rollers.

Fig. 3 is a View of a section of the jacquard patterned fabric after it has been color printed in the cylinder printing machine and the colors distributed over it as in Fig. 2, effects pn the pattern being indicated by the hatched mes.

The fabric a, in this example, may be composed of cotton yarn dyed with sulphur black and woven with white yarn in a Jacquard loom so as to obtain a white figure or pattern b (as at Fig. 3) on a black ground c. The patterned fabric is passed through the cylnider printing machine and is over printed by the four palette rollers l, 2, 3 and 4 in4 known manner. Each of these rollers is supplied with a different vat color printing paste from the color boxes. The colors may be purple, yellow, jade green and red or other desired series of colors.

Each roller l to 4 is engraved with a set or arrangen'ient of simple spaced engravings adapted to give respectively impressions as indicated by the numerals l, 2, 3 and 4 in Fiff. 2.

he impressions collectively give, as shown at Fi 2, a promiscuous arrangement or palette of four different colors and, as the fabric passes through the machine, this arrangement is printed thereover.

Owing to the fact that the pattern Z) (Fig. 3) in the fabric is white and the ground c is black the colors applied by the rollers l, 2, 3, 4 only show up on the pattern and not on the ground, the black neutralizing the colors applied thereto and preventing them showing up. The result is that the jacquard pattern b shows up clearly and dis tinctly in variegated colors, as indicated by the dili'erent line hatchings in Fig. 3, against a black round.

If desired the size of the rollers may be so chosen with regard to the woven ligure that a particular part of the alette arrangement does not always fall on t 1e same part of the woven figure, thus obtaining different effects on corresponding parts of the fabric.

After printing with the colors the fabric is dried, steamed, oxidized, rinsed and soaped in the usual manner.

It is obvious that by using the same rollers but interchanging the vat colors or by using different vat colors different palette coloring effects can be produced as desired.

It is to be understood that the palette arrangement can be varied as to the number and nature of the colors, the arrangement thereof, and the design each or all as may be desiied to give desired coloring effects Qn the figured fabric and that the figuring of the fabric itself can be varied or changed as desired by means of the jacquard mechanism.

A great advantage incidental to this invention is that the same palette rollers or blocks can be used for producing colored fabrics of a practically unlimited variety of designs or patterns, for the reason that, as the colored design or pattern of the finished fabric depends upon the jacquard pattern and not on the pattern of the palette rollers or blocks, it follows, that, as often as a fabric of a different jacquard design is passed through the printing machine ust as often will a new colored pattern be produced. Moreover this can be done without the necessity for stopping or altering the machine which latter can be run continuously. Further the color patterns produced can, by this invention, be changed according to the nature of the material and (or) the treatment, by dyeing or otherwise, of its libres.

Another great advantage is that, as colored fabrics, produced in accordance with this invention, can be sold and used in lieu of fabrics in which the colored design or pattern has been worked by the introduction of a variety of colored wefts and (or) warps, there will be no necessity for weavers using expensive and complicated looms adapted to weave fabrics of many different colors or for keeping large stocks of many different colored yarns or threads as at present. All that will be necessary will be to keep yarns or threads of a few simple colors and work them in a simple loom according to the desired jacquard pattern and, thereafter, have them printed by .the new process to produce the artistic, or other, multicolored jacquard design.

Fabrics with mixed fibres in the composition thereof may be made with one colored design on the one fibre and a different colored design on the other.

If, and when, desired the fabrics treated may be color printed on both sides by duplex palette rollers, so as to be reversible.

I claim 1. In the manufacture of fabrics, a method of color-printing and patterning the fabrics, comprising the steps of weaving the fabric of a material which does` not show up applied colors thereon, weaving in said fabric a pattern of a material which takes on and shows up said applied colors clearly and distinctly, and thereafter applying desired colors in composite arrangement over the whole of the surface of the said fabric in order to cause the woven-in pattern to show up in color-print against the fabric.

2. A method of producing woven colored patterned fabrics, consisting in weaving the fabric to produce a background of a material which is negative in color effect to applied colors, and simultaneously weaving in said fabric a pattern of a material which is posi- 

